Little Miss Peggy: Only a Nursery Story
"I'll see to the pot, Rebecca," she said; "just you wipe missy's frock a bit. 'Twill be none the worse, you'll see. And so your dear mar's away missy. I 'ope the change'll do her good."
"Yes, thank you," said Peggy. "She's gone to the country. Did you ever live in the country? And was it in a white cottage?"
Mrs. Simpkins smiled.
"No, missy, I'm town-bred. 'Tis father as knows all about the country; he's a Brackenshire man."
"Oh yes," said Peggy, "I forgot. It's Miss Earnshaw's mother I was thinking of."
"But father," said Matilda, "he can tell lots of tales about the country."
"I wish he was at home," said Peggy. "But I must go, now my frock's cleaned. Some day p'raps I'll come again. Thank you, Reddy," at which Rebecca, who had been vigorously rubbing Peggy's skirts, stared and looked as if she were going to say "Lor'!" "I'm going to buy soap-bubble pipes at Mrs. Whelan's," Peggy went on, for she was losing her shyness now; "that's what I comed out in the rain for. We're going to play at soap-bubbles this afternoon, 'cos it's too wet to go out a walk."
All the Smileys listened with great interest.
"Mayn't Brown – I mean Matilda-Jane – come with me, pelease?" said Peggy. "I'm razer frightened to go to buy them alone; sometimes that old woman does look so cross."
"She looks what she is then," said Reddy, "'cept for one thing; she's awful good to Lizzie. She's a-sittin' down there this very minute as is, is Lizzie, to be out o' the way like when mother and me's cleaning, you see, miss."
Brown Smiley's face had grown grave.
"I dursn't let Mother Whelan see as I've not gone," she said, "but if missy doesn't like to go alone – not as she'd be sharp to the likes of you, but still – "
"I'll go," said little Sarah, Light Smiley, that is to say. "Jest you see to the childer will ye, Mary-Hann?" she shouted to the deaf sister. "I won't be harf a minute."
"And you, Matilda-Jane, off with you," said Rebecca, which advice Brown Smiley instantly followed.
Sarah took Peggy's hand to escort her down the dark staircase again. Light Smiley was, of all the family perhaps, Peggy's favourite. She was two years or so older than her little opposite neighbour, but she scarcely looked it, for both she and Brown Smiley were small and slight, and when you came to speak to them both, Sarah seemed a good deal younger than Matilda; she was so much less managing and decided in manner, but on the present occasion Peggy would have preferred the elder Smiley, for to tell the truth her heart was beginning to beat much faster than usual at the thought of facing Mrs. Whelan in her den.
"Isn't you frightened, Light Smiley?" asked the little girl when the two stopped, and Peggy knew by this that they must be at the old woman's door.
"Oh no," Sarah replied. "Tisn't as if we'd been up to any mischief, you see. And Lizzie's there. She's mostly quiet when Lizzie's there."
So saying she pushed the door open. It had a bell inside, which forthwith began to tinkle loudly, and made Peggy start. This bell was the pride of Mrs. Whelan's heart; it made such a distinction, she thought, between her and the rest of the tenants of the house, and the more noisily it rang the better pleased she was. Sarah knew this, and gave the door a good shove, at the same time pulling Peggy into the room.
"What's it yer afther now, and what's become of Matilda-Jane?" called out the old woman, not, at the first moment, catching sight of Peggy.
"It's little missy from over-the-way," Sarah hastened to explain; "she's come to buy some pipes of you, Mother Whelan."
Mrs. Whelan looked at Peggy where she stood behind Sarah, gravely staring about her.
"To be sure," she said in her most gracious tone. "'Tis the beautiful pipes I have. And 'tis proud I am to say the purty young lady," and on she went with a long flattering speech about Peggy's likeness to her "swate mother," and inquiries after the lady's health, all the time she was reaching down from a high shelf an old broken cardboard box, containing her stock of clay pipes.
Peggy did not answer. In the first place, thanks to the old woman's Irish accent and queer way of speaking she did not understand a quarter of what she said. Then her eyes were busy gazing all about, and her nose was even less pleasantly occupied, for there was a very strong smell in the room. It was a sort of mixed smell of everything – not like the curious "everything" smell that one knows so well in a village shop in the country, which for my part I think rather nice – a smell of tea, and coffee, and bacon, and nuts, and soap, and matting, and brown holland, and spices, and dried herbs, all mixed together, but with a clean feeling about it – no, the smell in Mrs. Whelan's was much stuffier and snuffier. For joined to the odour of all the things I have named was that of herrings and tobacco smoke, and, I rather fear, of whisky. And besides all this, I am very much afraid that not only a spring cleaning but a summer or autumn or winter cleaning, were unknown events in the old woman's room. No wonder that Peggy, fresh from the soft-soap-and-water smell of the Simpkins's upstairs, sniffed uneasily and wished Mrs. Whelan would be quick with the pipes; her head felt so queer and confused.
But looking round she caught sight of a very interesting object; this was Lizzie, rocking herself gently on her chair in a corner, and seeming quite at home. Peggy ran – no she couldn't run – the room was so crowded, for a counter stood across one end, and in the other a big square old bedstead, and between the two were a table and one or two chairs, and an old tumble-down chest of drawers – made her way over to Lizzie.
"How do you do, Crip – Lizzie, I mean? I hope your pains aren't very bad to-day?"
"Not so very, thank you, miss," said the poor girl. "It's nice and quiet in here, and the quiet does me a deal o' good."
Peggy sighed.
"I don't like being very quiet," she said. "I wish you could come over to the nursery; now that Hal and baby and nurse are away it's dreffully quiet."
"But you wouldn't care to change places with me, would you, missy?" said Lizzie. "I'm thinking you'd have noise enough if you were upstairs sometimes. My – it do go through one's head, to be sure."
Peggy looked very sympathising.
"Aren't you frightened of her?" she whispered, nodding gently towards Mrs. Whelan.
"Not a bit of it," said Lizzie, also lowering her voice; "she's right down good to me, is the old body. She do scold now and then and no mistake, but bless you, she'd never lay a finger on me, and it's no wonder she's in a taking with the children when they kicks up a hextra row, so to say."
Peggy's mouth had opened gradually during this speech, and now it remained so. She could not understand half Lizzie's words, but she had no time to ask for an explanation, for just then Light Smiley called to her to come and look at the pipes which were by this time waiting for her on the counter.
They were the cleanest things in the room – the only clean things it seemed to Peggy as she lifted them up one by one to choose six very nice ones. And then she paid her pennies and ran back to shake hands with Lizzie and say good-bye to her – she wondered if she should shake hands with Mrs. Whelan too, but fortunately the old woman did not seem to expect it, and Peggy felt very thankful, for her brown wrinkled hands looked sadly dirty to the little girl, dirtier perhaps than they really were.
"I like your house much better than hers," said Peggy, when she and Light Smiley were down at the bottom of the stairs again; "it smells much nicer."
"Mother and Rebecca's all for scrubbing, that's certing," replied Sarah, with a smile of pleasure – of course all little girls like to hear their homes praised – "but she's not bad to Lizzie, is old Whelan," as if that settled the whole question, and Peggy felt she must not say any more about the dirty room.
Light Smiley felt it her duty to see "missy" safe across the street. Peggy's hands were laden with the precious pipes, and Sarah carried the big umbrella over the two of them. They chattered as they picked their way through the mud and stood for a minute or two at the yard-door of Peggy's house. Light Smiley peeped in.
"Lor'," she said, expressing her feelings in the same way as her sisters, "yours must be a fine house, missy. All that there back-yard for yerselves."
"You should see the droind-room, and mamma's room; there's a marble top to the washing-stand," said Peggy, with pride.
"Lor'," said Sarah again.
"Some day," Peggy went on, excited by Sarah's admiration, "some day when my mamma comes home, I'm going to ask her to let me have a tea-party of you all– in the nursery, you know. The nursery's nice too, at least I daresay you'd like it."
"Is that the winder where you sees us from?" asked Sarah. "Matilda-Jane says as how we could see you too quite plain at it if you put your face quite close to the glass."
"I can't," said Peggy. "There's the toilet-table close to the window – at least, it's really a chest of drawers, you know, but there's a looking-glass on the top and a white cover, so it's like a toilet-table for nurse, though it's too high up for me. I have to stand on a chair if I want to see myself popperly."
"Dear!" said Sarah sympathisingly.
"And I can only see you by scrooging into the corner, and the curting's there. No, you couldn't ever see me well up at the window. But that's not the nursery where we'd have tea. That's only the night nursery. The other one's to the front; that's the window where you can see the hills far away."
"In the country, where father used to live. Oh yes, I know. I heerd Matilda-Jane a-asking 'im about it," said Sarah.
"Oh, and did he tell you any more? Do ask him if it's really not far to get there," said Peggy, eagerly.
Sarah nodded.
"I won't forget," she said; "and then, missy, when you axes us to the tea-party, I'll be able to tell you all about it."
She did not mean to be cunning, poor little girl, but she was rather afraid Peggy might forget about the tea-party, and she thought it was not a bad plan to say something which might help to make her remember it.
"Yes," Peggy replied, "that would be lovely. Do make him tell all you can, Light Smiley. Oh, I do wish mamma would come home now, and I'd ask her about the tea-party immediately. I'm sure she'd let me, for she likes us to be kind to poor people."
Sarah drew herself up a little at this.
"We're not – not to say poor folk," she said, with some dignity. "There's a many of us, and it's hard enough work, but still – "
"Oh, don't be vexed," said Peggy. "I know you're not like – like beggars, you know. And I think we're rather poor too. Mamma often says papa has to work hard."
Sarah grew quite friendly again.
"I take it folks isn't often rich when they've a lot of children," she began, but the sound of a window opening across the street made her start. "Bless me," she said, "I must run. There's Rebecca a-going to scold me for standing talking. Good-bye, miss, I'll not forget to ask father."
And Sarah darted away, carrying with her the umbrella, quite forgetting that it was Peggy's. Peggy forgot it too, and it was not raining so fast now, so there was less to remind her. She shut the door and ran across the yard. The house door still stood open, and she made her way up to the nursery without meeting any one.
CHAPTER X
"SOAP-BUBBLING"
"And every colour see I there."
The Rainbow, Charles Lamb.There was no one upstairs. Miss Earnshaw had gone down to the kitchen to iron the seams of her work, without giving special thought to Peggy. If any one had asked her where the child was she would have probably answered that she was counting over her money in the night nursery. So she was rather surprised when coming upstairs again in a few minutes she was met by Peggy flying to meet her with the pipes in her hand.
"I've got them, Miss Earnshaw; aren't they beauties?" she cried. "And I don't think my frock's reely spoilt? It only just looks a little funny where the mud was."
"Bless me!" exclaimed the young dressmaker, "wherever have you been, Miss Peggy? No, your frock'll brush all right; but you don't mean to say you've been out in the rain? You should have asked me, my dear."
She spoke rather reproachfully; she was a little vexed with herself for not having looked after the child better, but Peggy was one of those quiet "old-fashioned" children, who never seem to need looking after.
"I did ask you," said Peggy, opening wide her eyes, "and you said, 'Very well, my dear.'"
Miss Earnshaw couldn't help smiling.
"I must have been thinking more of your new frock than of yourself," she said. "However, I hope it's done you no harm. Your stockings aren't wet?"
"Oh no," said Peggy; "my slippers were a weeny bit wet, so I've changed them. My frock wouldn't have been dirtied, only I felled in the wet, Miss Earnshaw, but Brown – one of the little girls, you know, that lives in the house where the shop is – picked me up, and there's no harm done, is there? And I've got the pipes, and won't my brothers be peleased," she chirruped on in her soft, cheery way.
Miss Earnshaw could not blame her, though she determined to be more on the look-out for the future. And soon after came twelve o'clock, and then the young dressmaker was obliged to go, bidding Peggy "Good-bye till Monday morning."
The boys came home wet and hungry, and grumbling a good deal at the rainy half-holiday. Peggy had hidden the six pipes in her little bed, but after dinner she made the three boys shut their eyes while she fetched them out and laid them in a row on the table. Then, "You may look now," she said; "it's my apprise," and she stood at one side to enjoy the sight of their pleasure.
"Hurrah," cried Terry, "pipes for soap-bubbles! Isn't it jolly? Isn't Peggy a brick?"
"Dear Peggy," said Baldwin, holding up his plump face for a kiss.
"Poor old Peg-top," said Thor, patronisingly. "They seem very good pipes; and as there's six of them, you and I can break one a-piece if we like, Terry, without its mattering."
Peggy looked rather anxious at this.
"Don't try to break them, Thor, pelease," she said; "for if you beginned breaking it might go on, and then it would be all spoilt like the last time, for there's no fun in soap-bubbling by turns."
"No, that's quite true," said Terry. "You remember the last time how stupid it was. But of course we won't break any, 'specially as they're yours, Peggy. We'll try and keep them good for another time."
"Did you spend all your pennies for them?" asked Baldwin, sympathisingly.
"Not quite all," said Peggy. "I choosed them myself," she went on, importantly. "There was a lot in a box."
"Why, where did you get them? You didn't go yourself to old Whelan's, surely?" asked Thor, sharply.
"Yes, I runned across the road," said Peggy. "You always get them there, Thor."
"But it's quite different. I can tell you mamma won't be very pleased when she comes home to hear you've been so disobedient."
Poor Peggy's face, so bright and happy, clouded over, and she seemed on the point of bursting into tears.
"I weren't disobedient," she began. "Miss Earnshaw said, 'Very well, dear,' and so I thought – "
"Of course," interrupted Terry; "Peggy's never disobedient, Thor. We'll ask mamma when she comes home; but she won't be vexed with you, darling. You won't need to go again before then."
"No," said Peggy, comforted, "I don't want to go again, Terry dear. It doesn't smell very nice in the shop. But the children's house is very clean, Terry. I'm sure mamma would let us go there."
"Those Simpkinses over old Whelan's," said Terry. "Oh yes, I know mother goes there herself sometimes, though as for that she goes to old Whelan's too. But we're wasting time; let's ask Fanny for a tin basin and lots of soap."
They were soon all four very happy at the pretty play. The prettiness of it was what Peggy enjoyed the most; the boys, boy-like, thought little but of who could blow the biggest bubbles, which, as everybody knows, are seldom as rich in colour as smaller ones.
"I like the rainbowiest ones best," said Peggy. "I don't care for those 'normous ones Thor makes. Do you, Baldwin?"
Baldwin stopped to consider.
"I suppose very big things aren't never so pretty as littler things," he said at last, when a sort of grunt from Terry interrupted him. Terry could not speak, his cheeks were all puffed out round the pipe, and he dared not stop blowing. He could only grunt and nod his head sharply to catch their attention to the wonderful triumph in soap-bubbles floating before his nose. There was a big one, as big as any of Thorold's, and up on the top of it a lovely every-coloured wee one, the most brilliant the children had ever seen – a real rainbow ball.
They all clapped their hands, at least Peggy and Baldwin did so. Thorold shouted, "Hurrah for Terry's new invention. It's like a monkey riding on an elephant." But Peggy did not think that was a pretty idea.
"It's more like one of the very little stars sitting on the sun's knee," was her comparison, which Baldwin corrected to the moon – the sun was too yellow, he said, to be like a no-colour bubble.
Then they all set to work to try to make double-bubbles, and Thor actually managed to make three, one on the top of the other. And Terry made a very big one run ever so far along the carpet without breaking, bobbing and dancing along as he blew it ever so gently.
And as a finish-up they all four put their pipes into the basin and blew together, making what they called "bubble-pudding," till the pudding seemed to get angry and gurgled and wobbled itself up so high that it ended by toppling over, and coming to an untimely end as a little spot of soapy water on the table.
"Pride must have a fall, you see," said Thor.
"It's like the story of the frog that tried to be as big as an ox," said Terence, at which they all laughed as a very good joke.
Altogether Peggy's pipes turned out a great success, and the rainy afternoon passed very happily.
The Sunday that came after that Saturday was showery, sunny, and rainy by turns, like a child who having had a great fit of crying and sobbing can't get over it all at once, and keeps breaking into little bursts of tears again, long after the sorrow is all over. But by Monday morning the world – Peggy's world, that is to say – seemed to have quite recovered its spirits. The sun came out smiling with pleasure, and even the town birds, who know so little about trees, and grass, and flowers, and all those delightful things, hopped about and chirruped as nicely as could be. The boys set off to school in good spirits, and while Fanny was taking down the breakfast-things Peggy got out the little red shoes, and set them on the window-sill, where they had not been for several days.
"There, dear little red shoes," she said, softly, "you may look out again at the pretty sun and the sky, and the fairy cottage up on the mounting. You can see it quite plain to-day, dear little shoes. The clouds is all gone away, and it's shinin' out all white and beautiful, and I daresay the mamma's standin' at the door with the baby – or p'raps," Peggy was never very partial to the baby, "it's asleep in its cradle. Yes, I think that's it. And the hens and cocks and chickens is all pecking about, and the cows moo'in. Oh, how I do wish we could go and see them all, don't you, dear little shoes?"
She stood gazing up at the tiny white speck, to other eyes almost invisible, as if by much gazing it would grow nearer and clearer to her; there was a smile on her little face, sweet visions floated before Peggy's mind of a day, "some day," when mamma should take her out "to the country," to see for herself the lovely and delightful sights that same dear mamma had described.
Suddenly Fanny's voice brought her back to present things. Fanny was looking rather troubled.
"Miss Peggy, love," she said, "cook and I can't think what's making Miss Earnshaw so late this morning. She's always so sharp to her time. I don't like leaving you alone, but I don't know what else to do. Monday's the orkardest day, for we're always so busy downstairs, and your papa was just saying this morning that I was to tell Miss Earnshaw to take you a nice long walk towards the country, seeing as it's so fine a day. It will be right down tiresome, it will, if she don't come."
"Never mind, Fanny," said Peggy. "I don't mind much being alone, and I daresay Miss Earnshaw will come. I should like to go a nice walk to-day," she could not help adding, with a longing glance out at the sunny sky.
"To be sure you would," said Fanny, "and it stands to reason as you won't be well if you don't get no fresh air. I hope to goodness the girl will come, but I doubt it – her mother's ill maybe, and she's no one to send. Well, dear, you'll try and amuse yourself, and I'll get on downstairs as fast as I can."
Peggy went back to the window and stood there for a minute or two, feeling rather sad. It did seem hard that things should go so very "contrarily" sometimes.
"Just when it's such a fine day," she thought, "Miss Earnshaw doesn't come. And on Saturday when we couldn't have goned a walk she did come. Only on Saturday it did rain very badly in the afternoon and she didn't stay, so that wasn't a pity."
Then her thoughts went wandering off to what the dressmaker had told her of having to go a long way out into the country on Saturday afternoon, and of how wet and muddy the lanes would be. Peggy sighed; she couldn't believe country lanes could ever be anything but delightful.
"Oh how very pretty they must be to-day," she said to herself, "with all the little flowers coming peeping out, and the birds singing, and the cocks and hens, and the cows, and – and – " she was becoming a little confused. Indeed she wasn't quite sure what a "lane" really meant – she knew it was some kind of a way to walk along, but she had heard the word "path" too, – were "lane" and "path" quite the same? she wondered. And while she was wondering and gazing out of the window, she was startled all of a sudden by a soft, faint tap at the door. So soft and faint that if it had been at the window instead of at the door it might have been taken for the flap of a sparrow's wing as it flew past. Peggy stood quite still and listened; she heard nothing more, and was beginning to think it must have been her fancy, when again it came, and this time rather more loudly. "Tap, tap." Yes, "certingly," thought Peggy, "there's somebody there."
She felt a little, a very little frightened.
Should she go to the door and peep out, or should she call "Come in"? she asked herself. And one or two of the "ogre" stories that Thorold and Terry were so fond of in their "Grimm's Tales," would keep coming into her head – stories of little princesses shut up alone, or of giants prowling about to find a nice tender child for supper. Peggy shivered. But after all what was the use of standing there fancying things? It was broad, sunny daylight – not at all the time for ogres or such-like to be abroad. Peggy began to laugh at her own silliness.
"Very likely," she thought, "it's Miss Earnshaw playing me a trick to 'apprise me, 'cos she's so late this morning."
This idea quite took away her fear.
"It's you, Miss Earnshaw, I'm quite sure it's you," she called out; "come in quick, you funny Miss Earnshaw. Come in."
But though the door slowly opened, no Miss Earnshaw appeared. Peggy began to think this was carrying fun too far.
"Why don't you come in quick?" she said, her voice beginning to tremble a little.
The door opened a little farther.
"Missy," said a low voice, a childish hesitating voice, quite different from Miss Earnshaw's quick bright way of speaking, "Missy, please, it's me, Sarah, please, miss."
And the door opened more widely, and in came, slowly and timidly still, a small figure well known to Peggy. It was none other than Light Smiley.
Peggy could hardly speak. She was so very much astonished.
"Light Smiley – Sarah, I mean," she exclaimed, "how did you come? Did you see Fanny? Did she tell you to come upstairs?"
Sarah shook her head.
